


Bring the Boys Back Home

by stellar_dust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Heaven, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellar_dust/pseuds/stellar_dust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam and Dean die and go to heaven!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring the Boys Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I want the show to end. 
> 
> Written during S8, but takes place some indeterminate time in the future, after they thwart at least two or three more apocalypses. 
> 
> (Title is a track off Pink Floyd's _The Wall_ , because nothing on _Dark Side of the Moon_ sounded right and I'm a giant dork.)

You don't remember dying.

The mess spread out across the warehouse floor – the mess wearing your face, and your flannel – begs to differ, though.

You decide not to look at that. Instead you concentrate on the early morning sunlight streaming through the half-boarded-up windows.  It's really quite pretty, you think, the way the light filters through the dust particles in the air, bathing the whole grey, forgotten room in this kind of diffuse red glow –

– oh holy fuck, that's your blood, the spray of blood from your ripped apart carotid artery is still hanging in the air and you're thinking about how _pretty_ it is, oh God –

 _Oh shit_ , you remember, _Dean, Dean, is Dean okay –_

"Sammy!" You close your eyes and breathe a quiet prayer to whoever's listening as you turn toward the voice, and your brother careens through the blood-spattered doorway, wide-eyed and breathless and looking _safe_ , and _oh thank you God or Cas or_ –

"Sammy, Sam, we got a problem, I think I'm –"

Dean stops, and you can see the moment he stops breathing as he takes in the scene in front of him.  The altar, ritual interrupted, overturned, the blood on the floor indistinguishable from your own.  Your body, clawed open from throat to crotch, flayed in the embrace of the harpy/dragon hybrid (drarpy? hargon?) who is, good to know, just as dead, your consecrated sword protruding through the back of its skull. 

Suffice it to say, it doesn't look good for Sam Winchester. 

"Dean," you say, reaching out to him, even as you know it's futile, if Ghost Bobby's experience is anything to go by, but you can't not try. You don't even know what you'd say if he could hear -

Then Dean turns toward you.

The actual you, not the dead you.

Fuck.

"Not you too, Sammy," Dean says, and it's his hopeless voice, the one you never wanted to hear again.

"You too, huh." You don't look at him.  What do you even _do_  - "Did we get them, Dean?"

He swallows, and when he speaks it's rough, raw.  "Yeah.  Two drarpies, down.  Go us, I guess."

".. I thought we agreed to call them hargons."

"Shut up.  We got bigger problems.  And drarpy just sounds better."

"No it doesn't, it sounds stupid, like a sad gnome or something."

He doesn't answer.  You had the same argument last night, and death doesn't make it any funnier. 

You sigh, and turn around in place, surveying the rows of old metal shelves and machinery, thinking that Dean's body is somewhere behind them, and suddenly the world feels both enormous and very, very small at the same time.

"Garth okay?" you ask.

"Dunno.  Haven't seen him since he went for the kids.  Hope so."  Dean's got this awful look in his eyes, like he knows what's coming next and he'd give anything not to deal with it.  You can sympathize – you _have_ given anything not to deal with death before, both of you, and neither of you want to go back to hell – but somehow you don't think that's it.  Hell, if it's hell, at least he won't be alone this time.  You won't let him go alone.

Huh.  Sounds like you might be sort of okay with the whole "being dead" thing.  Go figure.

"Dean, what do we do now?"

"You come with me.  Both of you."

You both turn, scrambling for the weapons you don't have, instinctively covering each other's backs –

Standing in the door Dean just came through is a young woman, nice looking, black slacks with a white top and jet-black hair in a bob around her face.

"Tessa," Dean breathes out.  He's still freaked.  "Get away from me.  Get – it's not my time yet, it's not –"

"Dean." Tessa's voice is firm, but amused, a little bit sad.  "It was your time years ago.  Yours too, Sam." She nods in your direction; you tilt your head at her in acknowledgement.  Can't deny that. 

She stretches her hands toward you, palms up, inviting.  "We thought if we came for the two of you at once, perhaps you'd go."

You bite your lip, looking over at Dean.  He's shaking his head, fists tight, eyes squinched shut, and he's muttering something over and over that you can't quite make out. 

It's starting to freak you out a little, too.  Dean doesn't get scared like this.  You don't get it.  It's – well, it's just death, not like you haven't both been there before. 

"Dean –" You reach out, slowly, and grip his forearm. 

"It's all right, Sammy, it's okay, Cas will be here –"

"Dean." You grip him harder, shake a little.  "If Cas were coming, don't you think he'd be here now instead of Tessa?"

"No, no, he'll come, I don't believe that –"

"Dean.  Hey.  Listen." Your chest hurts.  You bring your other hand to rest on his shoulder, swallowing hard, making him meet your eyes.  "Whatever you're doing, man, just stop, okay?  It's all right.  You don't have to protect me from this.  It had to happen sometime, right?  I can't think of a better way to go out than saving a couple of kids from a hargon."

It's true.  You saved the world again a couple weeks ago, helping Castiel get God back to heaven, but somehow this – this feels more important.

"Drarpy," Dean says, and you can feel him start to get a grip on himself, but he's obviously still not okay with any of this, it's there in the shape of his eyes and the clench of muscles in his jaw.

"Tessa!" Dean grinds out.  You both look over at her, still standing nonchalantly just inside the door, arms crossed, waiting you out.  "Are the kids okay?  Garth?"

She raises an eyebrow and tilts her head to the opposite door, the one leading out, with the stairwell to the basement just in front.  As you watch, Bobby's trucker hat emerges from below, and the rest of Garth follows after.  His eyes and nose are red but he's got one skinny arm around each of the kids, Erica and Lauren, pushing them ahead of him into the sunlight.

Kid's really grown on you.

Garth stops in the doorway, turns back and takes off Bobby's hat, holding it over his heart and bowing his head.  When he speaks, his voice is thick and wet.  "Guys, if- if you're still here, I – _thank_ you.  For – for everything.  I'll – you guys are just the best, you know?  I'll – I'll be back and – take care of you both, and the dragon things, after I get the girls home, okay?  Don't –don't wait up."

Garth swallows thickly, and with one last glance and a wave of Bobby's hat, he's gone.

"Wow," Dean whispers.  "You did good, Garth."

"He's gonna be great. The best." You let go of Dean.  He looks up at you, eyes full of trepidation and something else you can't define.

"You're ready to go, aren't you, Sam?"

"Yeah." You close your eyes, open them again, swallow.  "But – Dean, only if you are."

Dean nods, visibly steels himself.  You're sure you're missing something, but there's no time.

"Okay.  Let's make this happen." Dean squints at Tessa.

" _Thank_ you." She takes your hand in her left, Dean's in her right.  " _Fin_ ally. I swear, you two have been the _most_ trouble since – "

Then there's a light, and you're reaped.

 

* * *

 

 

You wake up in the Impala.

It's midafternoon, sunlight warming your thighs through your jeans.  The car's parked beside the road and for half a guilty second, before you really wake up, you're sure you're about to see Stephanie's house, Thanksgiving, 1994 –

Corn.  Road.  Sky.  That's all.  Nebraska, or something. And Dean's behind the wheel.  You breathe a sigh of relief.  You're right where you want to be, and it's _not hell_ , somehow you're forgiven for the whole thing with the demon blood and the devil and all the shit soulless you did – and – and you smile at Dean, and it feels light and real, and like your first real smile in years.

"We made it! Dean, this is heaven, it has to be!"

Dean frowns out the windshield.  He still has that look, like the second shoe hasn't dropped yet.  What crawled up his ass, you wonder.  "Yeah.  Whatever.  If this is Paradise, I was promised cheeseburgers."

"Dean, not everything is –" You shift in your seat, stretching, and when you move your leg, something crinkles. ".. huh."

It's a white paper bag, heavy, grease stained, and perhaps most disturbing of all, it has "Welcome! – Castiel" written on it in large friendly letters.

"Ugh," you say.  "I think this is for you."

Dean practically snatches the bag out of your hands.  "Mine, give it, that's – Oh my God."  He's got it open on his lap before you can blink, and he's.  He's.  Sniffing it. "Oh my God, Sam, you have to smell this, this is amazing."

You laugh, incredulous, because this is so _normal_ , and push yourself as far away from the driver's side as you can get.  "No, thanks, I'm good.  You gonna eat that or what?"

Dean's giddiness vanishes as quickly as it came. The tension settles back into his shoulders and brow.  "Yeah.  In a little while." He closes the bag and puts it reverently on the back seat, and when he turns back to grip the wheel he's not better.

Actually, strike that, he looks like he's about to _cry_.  What the hell.

"Dean, what the hell –"

"Where am I dropping you off, Sammy?" he interrupts you, knuckles white, staring straight out into the lowering sun.

What?  "What?"

"Where?  Stanford?  Flagstaff?  Kermit? Let's get you to your heaven so I can get started on my –" he clears his throat and looks out the window, and you think his next word might have been going to be "hell."

Well, shit.  It's starting to make sense.  Your mind's working a mile a minute, because you have to fix this, your stupid asshole dickface big brother who you love more than anything in the universe actually thinks you could –

"Dean, Dean, fuck, no, what the hell?  I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't lie to me, Sam.  I saw your heaven.  Somebody else's Thanksgiving, remember?"

"No.  Dean." You shift so you're facing him, one leg folded on the seat.  You reach for his shoulder and he shrugs you off.  Dammit.

"Dean, listen to me, okay? You don't really think I could – what, spend _eternity_ wandering through all the parts of my life where you're not?  That's fucked up."

"Sam, I _saw_ it, I was _there_."  He's getting pissed.  You have about thirty seconds before he opens the door and storms off into the cornfield.  You swallow and wet your lips.

"When we were here before," you pitch your voice low, soft, trying desperately not to plead.  There's a rainbow in the distance, you notice.

"When we were here before, there was a war going, and I was Lucifer's vessel.  Heaven wasn't working right, and it _hated_ me.  God's back now, remember, and - what we saw then, it doesn't mean anything, it's complete bullshit, okay?  Dean?"

"That's not what you said before."

This isn't working.  _Dammit_.  Part of you knows you might have been happy with that, then, but now – after the last few years – no fucking way.  Even then, when you didn't know what you know now – you'd have been bored in a week.  You thump your head back against the window and try to think.

"Dean, I have died and killed and bled and sweated and gone fucking _mad_ to keep you with me, and if you try to take that away from me, _now¸ here_ of all places, I swear to God I will – well, first I'll punch you in the face, and then I guess I might as well just ask him to send me to hell instead, because that is what it would be like, Dean.  Hell."

" … you mean that?"

Dean's shoulders are still slumped, dejected, but he's biting his lip and about half the tension is gone from the line of his back.  Oh thank God.

"Yes, of course I mean it, you dick, how could – " You're reaching out for him, blindly, and he grabs your arm so you're gripping elbows in some kind of weird manly Roman greeting or something, but fuck that.  You use your leverage of being bigger and also not having a steering wheel in your face to pull him closer and hug your brother like you mean it.

It's only a few seconds before he's gripping you back, fiercely, shuddering breaths against your chest that you think you should probably pretend not to hear.

"That's why you didn't want to go with Tessa, isn't it?" you whisper into his spiky hair.  "You thought as soon as we got here, I'd ditch you?  Dean, I would never do that to you.  Never.  Look, even when we were here before?  We were _together_.  Okay?  Every step of the way.  You're stuck with me, Dean, so get used to it, man."

"Sammy," Dean whispers, pulling back enough to speak, his forehead still resting on your shoulder.  "I'm sorry.  I'm really .. I'm sorry. For .. for doubting you or whatever."

"Hey, hey, stop." You push him up the rest of the way, and boy do you kind of want to put your hand on his cheek and wipe his eyes with your thumb, but that would be just a little too girly even for you.  So you don't.  "We should have talked about this years ago.  You shouldn't have had to .. "

Nope, you are not going to say the words "be so afraid of dying." Not to your brother, not happening.

Dean raises an eyebrow at you.  "Yeah.  Well.  Ok, I got it, you're sticking around, it's done, we're here.  So before we both grow celestial vaginas, let's figure out where we're going, huh?"

He sits back up behind the wheel, dragging his sleeve over his eyes.  "Wanna go check out the roadhouse, find Ash?"

"Yeah!" That actually sounds fantastic.  You just died and then bled all your feelings out through your mouth, and beers with Ash – hell, probably Ellen and Jo and Bobby too – sounds like the best idea you've heard all day.

Except that you look over at Dean, and he still looks so quiet and somehow stupidly _fragile_ , and you change your mind.

"But first, can we just – can we just drive for a while?"

Dean's eyes close, and he lets out a breath, and you can finally – finally – see that last bit of tension and fear ease out of him. 

"Yeah, Sam," Dean says.  "We can drive."

You reach for his shoulder again, daring him to push you away, and he doesn't.  He meets your arm with his right hand and holds you there, for just a second, and then he goes for the ignition.

You just about hit the ceiling as the opening chords of "Highway to Hell" blast out of the speakers.  That has got to be at least a hundred decibels, what the _hell_ , Cas?

"YES!" Dean yells.  He smacks his hand against the dashboard, and his mouth is open in the most startled, pleased expression you've seen on him in probably ever.  "Oh hell fucking yes, Sammy, I am in _heaven_!"

You laugh out loud, and you have to press the heel of your hand to your forehead, because it's all so ridiculous and perfect and how is this your life, again?

"You are such a dork, you know that?"

Dean grins back at you as he peels out onto the road – laying rubber in heaven, that is just – actually that's _awesome_.  He's already got one hand out the window, pointing the car toward that rainbow you noticed earlier, and then he turns the volume down, just a little.

Thank God.

Dean's never been that complicated, you think.   All he wants is the road and the Impala and some tunes and you, and now that there's nothing chasing you and nothing to kill, and you finally don't have to think about any of it – you know that's all you want too.  Probably all you've ever wanted.  It's okay, it's fine, it's fantastic.  It's heaven and it's Dean and you're both okay.

"Man, I can't believe we got taken out by a couple of drarpies."

"Hargons."

"Drarpies."

"Hargons.  Are we going to do this forever?"

"Screw you.  Definitely drarpies."

"Hargons.  Cas'll back me up.  Assface."

Dean sticks his tongue out at you and turns the radio back up, letting you win, for once.  You smirk at him but it turns into a real grin, and then you're both laughing like you're twelve years old and someone just farted.

It's perfect.

You close your eyes and lean back, and let your brother's out-of-tune voice roll over and through you like sunlight.


End file.
